It is known in the art to use an apparatus to enhance the visual appearance of the veins and arteries in a patient to facilitate insertion of needles into those veins and arteries as well as other medical practices that require the identification of vein and artery locations. Such a system is described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,969,754 and 6,556,858 incorporated herein by reference as well as publication entitled “The Clinical Evaluation of Vein Contrast Enhancement”. Luminetx is currently marketing such a device under the name “Veinviewer Imaging System” and information related thereto is available on their website, which is incorporated herein by reference.
The Luminetx Vein Contrast Enhancer (hereinafter referred to as LVCE) utilizes a light source for flooding the region to be enhanced with near infrared light generated by an array of LEDs. A CCD imager is then used to capture an image of the infrared light reflected off the patient. The resulting captured image is then projected by a visible light projector onto the patient in a position closely aligned with the image capture system. The light source for flooding the region to be enhanced does not deeply penetrate into the patient, and therefore, only the veins on the surface of the patient are imaged. Further, the image representative of the veins which is rendered onto the patient is two dimensional and does not provide any depth information. Still further, there is no method using such technology to display blood flowing at a given depth in the patient.